Erased: Why Tens of Thousands of Haitian Youth Do Not Officially Exist

Dominican laws have stripped citizenship from
many young people of Haitian descent, barring them from legal employment, education, even marriage.

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Ethnic
Haitians have played a vital role in the development of the Dominican
Republic. Haitians have been the backbone of the sugar industry, working
as braceros or cane-cutters, and in recent years they have
made invaluable contributions to the construction and service industry.
But deep-rooted racism and discrimination towards people of Haitian
origin have been a part of society in the Dominican Republic since the
late 1920s.

It is estimated that between 500,000 and one million people of
Haitian ancestry currently live in the Dominican Republic, including
tens of thousands of children and young adults who were born in the
country. Yet changes to migration laws in 2004, governmental directives
in 2007, and a change in the Constitution of the Dominican Republic in
2010 have denied or retroactively stripped Dominican citizenship away
from tens of thousands of Dominico-Haitian youth. Human rights groups
see these legal and policy changes as specifically targeting those of
Haitian descent. As a result, these residents find themselves unable to
access opportunities afforded to other Dominican citizens, such as legal
employment, access to social services, or the right continue their
education and to legally marry.

While the situation in the Dominican Republic has now gained the
attention of the Inter-American courts and international human rights
organizations, it remains the largest case of statelessness in the
Western hemisphere.